Birthday
The progenitor of the Delano family in the Americas was Philippe de Lannoy [1] whose family name was anglicized to Delano. The 19-year-old Pilgrim of Flanders descent arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts on November 9, 1621 on the second Pilgrim ship, Fortune. His descendants include Philip Delano Jr., Frederic Adrian Delano, Jonathan Delano and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, Calvin Coolidge, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Robert Redfield, Captain Paul Delano, and Alan B. Shepard. Delano family forebears include the Pilgrim who chartered the Mayflower, seven of its passengers and three signers of the Mayflower Compact.[2]
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Philippe de Lannoy was born in Leiden on December 7, 1602 of religious refugee parents Jan Lano, born Jean de Lannoy in 1575 at Tourcoing, and Marie le Mahieu of Lille both in the Southern Netherlands. His parents were betrothed in the Leiden Walloon Church on January 13, 1596. After his father died in 1604 at Leiden, his mother married Robert Mannoo of Namur on February 18, 1605. Philippe's grandfather, Guilbert de Lannoy of Tourcoing, was an early Protestant who left the mainland with his family for England probably in the late 1570s and then, in 1591, moved to Leiden, a safe harbor for religious dissidents. The le Mahieus arrived in Leiden from England around the same time. The family name de Lannoy probably derives from the town of Lannoy (a name derived from the Latin alnetum and French “l’aunaie” meaning “alder plantation”), near Lille. There is no evidence to support claims that Philippe's father descended from the noble de Lannoys.
Philippe de Lannoy's family was affiliated to the Leiden Walloon Church, indicating they were Francophones or speakers of a French dialect. While the timing and extent of his contact with the John Robinson Pilgrim congregation in Leiden is unknown, Philippe eventually joined their voyage to the American continent.
The Leiden Pilgrims bought the Speedwell. Although his name is not on the passenger list, Philippe is believed by a contemporary scholar to have joined his uncle Francis Cooke (husband of his mother's sister, Hester le Mahieu) and young cousin John Cooke on the first stage of the voyage from Delfshaven to Southampton to meet the Mayflower. They gathered in England with other Pilgrims and hireling colonizers to stage the onward voyage with the two ships. Barely into the Atlantic crossing, the Speedwell began to leak. This leakage forced the convoy to abort the voyage and return to England twice. After the second return, Mayflower proceeded alone. Speedwell was sold. Ten of its passengers, among them Francis and John Cooke, joined the Mayflower. The remaining Speedwell passengers remained behind. Philippe joined a replacement ship, the "Fortune", which sailed for Plymouth Colony in early July 1621, arriving on November 9. It is possible that Philippe went separately to England rather than on Speedwell.
Philippe de Lannoy joined and resided with his uncle Francis Cooke and cousin Robert who had arrived on the Mayflower the year before. In 1623, he received a land grant in Plymouth but sold this property in 1627 and moved to Duxborough where in 1634 he married Hester Dewsbury (1613–1657). There, Delano prospered and was part of the group who organized the construction of highways and bridges around the village.
He served in the Pequot War of 1637 as a volunteer. In 1652 he joined with 35 other colonists to purchase with trading goods what was then called Dartmouth Township from Massasoit, the leader of the Wampanoag who drew the boundaries. It was sold to the Religious Society of Friends or Quakers, who wished to live outside the stringent religious laws of the Puritans. Philippe gave his portion of the acquisition, amounting to 800 acres (3.2 km²), to his son Jonathan Delano.[3] Following the death of his wife, he married a second time to Mary Pontus. He died on August 22, 1681 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. A great many of his offspring would become prominent mariners, whalers, and shipbuilders. The later commercial success of some Delanos was such that they would become part of the Massachusetts aristocracy, sometimes referred to as one of the Boston Brahmins (the "First Families of Boston").
His son Jonathan married Mercy Warren, granddaughter of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren; among their direct descendants are the author Laura Ingalls Wilder, President Ulysses S. Grant, President Calvin Coolidge anthropologist Robert Redfield, astronaut Alan B. Shepard, and the poet Conrad Potter Aiken.
Over time, family members migrated to other states including Michigan, Maine, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Vermont and as far away as Chile where today descendants of Captain Paul Delano are numerous and prominent. From the New York clan, Sara Delano married James Roosevelt and their only child, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became President of the United States.
The Delano name is also found across America where several places have been named in honor of a family member:
Some notable members of the Delano family in America:
